longarm quilting – Teresa Coates

Last March, my bosses at Shannon Fabrics asked me to cut my travels short and come home. I was pretty sure my workload would decrease and I’d be able to finally spend some time learning to longarm quilt, so I bought a small Grace Company Q-Zone Hoop Frame and Q’Nique 15R from CaliQuiltCo. I’ve worked with Tayva many times and she was just starting to sell the machines, so it was an easy choice on where to buy one.

Fast forward a few months and the reality began to set it that not only was I not going back on the road, I wasn’t going to have any less work to do! Sew Together Tuesday had gotten some momentum and suddenly I was busier than ever. So the whole set up sat immobile for months. Then I had a bunch of quilts to finish and not enough time to do the design, piecing and quilting. So I asked Hawke to help out.

She didn’t want me to show off a picture of her, so this is as close at it gets: my daughter holding up her birthday quilt. She did let me take a photo of her with it, though, which is a minor miracle in itself. I just can’t show it off publicly and that’s okay.

I made this using Aria Lane’s Concerto pattern and I have to say it was so quick and easy that it almost seemed like cheating. The pattern itself calls for four solids, but I decided to mix this up with a little fabric for the Sierra collection by Bren Talavera and some Kona Snow, Pomegranate, Chartreuse and Caribbean.

I was able to put it together by using strips for the Snow rather than peicing blocks. It worked out fine, required less sewing and when it was all quilted, it didn’t make any difference (imho) in how it looked.

I sent this to Nancy Stovall of Just Quilting PDX, one of my favorite peopl and an amazing longarm quilter. She’s been an integral part of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild and I was thrilled when she said she’d quilt it up for me. The only thing I asked for was a bit of girly, but not overboard and to hide some hearts in there somewhere to remind me daughter how much I love her. And that she did.

It took me a week to stitch the binding on, but at last I tied off those last stitches, washed it and it got all crinkled and lovely. Isn’t it beautiful?! I really love how washing gives it a really texture, showing off all of Nancy‘s awesome quilting.

Pattern Name: Concerto from Aria Lane
Time Required: 10 hours to piece the front + quilting
Rating: Beginner (start with the smaller size if you’re a newbie)
Would I Make It Again?: Yes!
What I Changed: I cut strips instead of squares for the Kona and used a mix of solids and prints, rather than only solids.

Tag: longarm quilting

Longarm Quilting with Cuddle minky & Hawke [Sew Together Tuesday]

Birthday quilt–finished!